I'm in the small set of not 'about everyone' - I played Mario Kart once, with my animation school roomie, and found it to be a really painful, awkward control experience. But I am obviously not normal.
I was in the kitchen putting together a pizza pondering a reply that went into the fact that pretty much any sports game I've encountered lacks a narrative, and a meta-narrative, beyond '[sport] is fun!'. Which was sort of part of my objection to Bioshock in the first place - that its message, as embodied in what remains after you play it for the third time and skip all the cut-scenes, is 'violently destroying semi-human things in the nastiest fashion possible is fun!'.
Also there would have been something about my disinterest for sports/simulation games coming from the fact that they model activities well within the reach of anyone, as opposed to activities firmly in the realm of imagination.
Also there probably would have been a rambling bit about the two narratives found on the surface of any game with a 'story': the story found in cut-scenes, and the story embedded in the actions the user is allowed and encouraged to take in the game - there may be a subplot of 'if you kill little girls you get the bad ending' in Bioshock, but the meat of the game is sure still about killin'. Also there might've been something about the values communicated underneath a game's narratives in the conditions for success - go grab that install you have lying around of Virtual Villagers, for instance: what does that game tell you is Good for the Tribe by dint of success/failure conditions? Consider Lemmings as a communist parable, consider Sonic the Hedgehog as a parable about both the joy and danger of moving so fast you lose control.
But I'm too tired of talking about video games, after yesterday, to go into any detail on this. So I'll leave expanding it as an exercise for the reader. With the implied suggestion of reading Bioshock and/or its demo on this level to understand my reaction to it.
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Date: 2007-09-05 11:09 pm (UTC)I was in the kitchen putting together a pizza pondering a reply that went into the fact that pretty much any sports game I've encountered lacks a narrative, and a meta-narrative, beyond '[sport] is fun!'. Which was sort of part of my objection to Bioshock in the first place - that its message, as embodied in what remains after you play it for the third time and skip all the cut-scenes, is 'violently destroying semi-human things in the nastiest fashion possible is fun!'.
Also there would have been something about my disinterest for sports/simulation games coming from the fact that they model activities well within the reach of anyone, as opposed to activities firmly in the realm of imagination.
Also there probably would have been a rambling bit about the two narratives found on the surface of any game with a 'story': the story found in cut-scenes, and the story embedded in the actions the user is allowed and encouraged to take in the game - there may be a subplot of 'if you kill little girls you get the bad ending' in Bioshock, but the meat of the game is sure still about killin'. Also there might've been something about the values communicated underneath a game's narratives in the conditions for success - go grab that install you have lying around of Virtual Villagers, for instance: what does that game tell you is Good for the Tribe by dint of success/failure conditions? Consider Lemmings as a communist parable, consider Sonic the Hedgehog as a parable about both the joy and danger of moving so fast you lose control.
But I'm too tired of talking about video games, after yesterday, to go into any detail on this. So I'll leave expanding it as an exercise for the reader. With the implied suggestion of reading Bioshock and/or its demo on this level to understand my reaction to it.